In a speech on 26 Oct 2009 to the New York State Bar Association that covered the press situation in Singapore, Law Minister K Shanmugam did little more than to successfully tackle a straw man.
Questioning Reporters without Borders’ (RwB) press ranking of Singapore (133 out of 175 countries), Shanmugam oddly urged for the ranking to take into account the economic success of Singapore since independence.
The Law Minister must know that RwB judges every nation’s press freedom standards by the same measure – so how could he expect special “objective” treatment for Singapore? After all, Singapore was not ranked below Kenya and Congo in press freedoms this year without reason.
Had Shanmugam revealed a more holistic picture of the press scene in Singapore to his visitors from New York, he might not have been so dismissive of the RwB report he sought to discredit. In truth, the Law Minister was probably acutely aware of the state of the press in Singapore – it just did not serve his interests to reveal the other side of the story.
Unfortunately for him, discerning Singaporeans, Americans and foreigners at large, are well acquainted with the other side of the story.
Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), the largest media conglomerate in Singapore maintains a monopoly over the press. It regularly makes profits in excess of $400m dollars a year, recession or not, and its chairman happens to be a former deputy prime minister who is a member of the same political party as Mr Shanmugam.
SPH’s group president from 1995-2002 was a former director of the Internal Security Department. The current political editor of The Straits Times, the most widely read English daily published by SPH, is a former Internal Security Department officer. There is no Freedom of Information Act in Singapore.
Only some months ago, The Straits Times had the gall to remove comments made by the Finance Minister in parliament that covered Singaporeans’ right to information on matters involving the state’s sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings. On assuming responsibilities as chairman of SPH in the early 1980s, the current President of Singapore, Mr S.R. Nathan, was famously told by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew that he was being handed a porcelain vase that if broken, could never be put back again. By MM Lee Kuan Yew’s own admission, government press control and management have been central to the ruling People’s Action Party’s (PAP) grip on power since independence in 1965.
In shrewdly seeking to conflate Singapore’s economic success against the irrelevance of international press freedom rankings, Law Minister K Shanmugam sought to justify the importance of maintaining the government’s indirect control over the press in Singapore.
In reality, Singapore’s economic success since the 1960s is of little relevance to RwB, as is the economic performance of any other country it ranks. Correspondingly, the Law Minister ought to have respected the objective ranking standards of RwB, in step with his triumphant references to reports from the World Economic Forum, IMD, Moody’s, Mercer and Mori, which rank Singapore favourably in economic, legal and quality of life indices.
In a curious blast from the past, Shanmugam also spoke of an Asian value system of human rights with reference to American perceptions about Singapore. But sadly, what constitutes this value system was not properly explained to his visitors from the New York State Bar Association. If the minister was referring to “Asian values”, he ought to have been reminded that that particular debate is long dead and buried.
In “Human Rights and Asian Values” (first published in 1997 at The New Republic), Amartya Sen had already debunked it completely. The simple generalisation of Asian Values does not adequately explain the cultural ethos of a multi-racial state like Singapore. In fact, even MM Lee had long withdrawn himself from this debate he so enthusiastically engendered, when he clarified that what he meant by Asian values were not applicable to Southeast Asia.
The least Shanmugam could have done was to express what he meant by a term that has all but disappeared from the international public lexicon, rather than to frame an argument around it.In justifying his “Asian value system of human rights”, Shanmugam went on to detail the existential threats that confronted Singapore in an era of decolonisation. Perhaps he meant to say that people were locked up without trial in Singapore because that was the price to pay for development and economic prosperity.
In speaking of a past which many Singaporeans have little memory of, the Law Minister was better placed to speak about a Singapore of tomorrow, rather than to justify the political matrix of yesteryear. After all, Shanmugam was selling Singapore as a great place to do business to his American visitors – he might well have sourced more business for Singapore if he gave his support to a PAP government that respected a free and responsible press, in addition to one that drew a line at Singapore’s Cold War era press control regimes.
Rather than propose a standard for RwB that is incongruous with its press freedom index template, the Law Minister should have made a commitment to align Singapore’s press freedom regime with that of other democracies. And if the minister cares to put his mind to it, the choice of one or two independently-owned and operated newspapers at his doorstep at 6am in morning, in addition to The Straits Times, may well serve to put a smile on his face the next time RwB releases its press freedom index.
Related posts:
- Reporters Without Borders – open letter to PM Lee Hsien Loong
- Singaporeans should be informed of what is going on within our borders, whether legal or not
- Cleaner estates? Consider paying more, says minister
- The fine quality of our deputy prime minister
- Your money at work and the curious disappearing acts of the prime minister
smallvoice 585 #49
“If TOC continues in its campaign to discredit the Government at every turn in the hope…What I’m trying to do is not to side with PAP or anti-PAP forces, but…”
The PAP has discredited itself by allowing (itself) to be dominated by one man and famiLEE. The PAP government is wasting public money by having two irrelevant positions, MM and SM, and also by appointing a over-paid president who is like having a permanent hoilday.
The PAP government can redeem itself if they allow for a non-SPH newspaper to function freely, non-PAP linked TV and radio stations to operate freely.
In fact , it should be a notch lower because the PAP government does not even allow private satellite dishes to operate.
“What I’m trying to do is not to side with PAP or anti-PAP forces, but to goad both sides to evolve to a higher level of debate. Only with such a development can Singapore nurture a new generation of politically-conscious citizens.”
I salute your high mission in wanting “to goad both sides to evolve to a higher level of debate.”
Blah blah blah only with such a development can Singapore nurture a new generation of politically-conscious citizens. What a sterile goody-goody pretentious unwanted deed.
“the credibility of this whole website will increasingly by called into question.”
Frankly if it is left alone, yes if it is left alone, to grow without any interference, it will grow from strength to strength. So do not worry to much about its credibility, it should least bothers you as you are not going to lose a single bit.
If RwB’s report is untrue or wrong then have RwB been sued already?
If not , tell me the Why.
“If RwB’s report is untrue or wrong then have RwB been sued already?
If not , tell me the Why.”
“Reporters Without Borders is an international non-governmental organization that aims at defending journalists and media assistants imprisoned or persecuted for doing their job and exposes the mistreatment and torture of them in many countries. It fights against censorship and laws that undermine press freedom, gives financial aid to journalists or media outlets in difficulty, as well to the families of imprisoned journalists, and works to improve the safety of journalists, especially those reporting in war zones. Website: http://www.rsf.org/”
So how can kangaroo even sue those Reporters that are without any Border ? Anyway, Singapore can make history and cuckoo by suing RWB, and insist that suing take place in the tiny red dot with summary judgment as usual. After all, suing is done entirely using state money without accountability to citizens anyway. With each sue, our kangaroo reveals its tail little by little.
Kangaroos are kangaroos. Whether there is a report by Reporters without Borders, or Reporters with Borders, or Reporters who Bothers, kangaroos are still kangaroos, animals that is.
The beauty about this deliberate campaign to make itself look pretty by disguising the Kangaroo as a humane Human Being, by at least three big kangaroos, when their Emperor happens to be visiting the US, is that it reflects the deliberate plan and pains they had gone into this in order to blur the perceptions of the world. This reminds me of the story of the Little Red Ridding Hood who was being conned by the greedy wicked wolf. This is tragic.
Perhaps the end justifies the means. But how long can the veil of rationalistic and perverted reasonings last? One can fool all the people sometimes. One can fool some people all the times. BUT one can never fool ALL the people ALL the time!
Why are we seeing more and more of the Emperor Without Clothes these days? Even highly trained professionals are stooping so low to help convince all of us (and the world at large) that the Emperor is wearing clothes, when they themselves are living it up in the same Nudist Camp with the Emperor, exposing their own nakedness for all to see!
Tragic!
In which Country was the act committed?
Can RwB annually give assessment of the singapore situation without being sued, using their same standard applied to all countries they assess ?
I think a few readers have been too harsh on our multi-millionaire elites.
I feel that they are so Honest, Fair, UnBiased that their interest is always to Serve the Country more than themselves, if any.
This is what i call Serving the People with the highest level of Integrity. This is what i call Public Service. What a public servant!
Shanmugam, you are so great, generations of youths will remember you for your good deeds. You really earn your money in a respectable way. You should be elected by the citizenry in a SMC given your credibility. You are sure to win hands down, by a landslide.
you the man!
You may think this ironical or contradictory, but I find Shanmugam’s words, like so many others of his colleagues in similar situations when faced with a foreign, significant, highly educated, well informed and intelligent group, to be good news.
Those cliche statements exposed a proclivity of Shan and his contemporaries in the cabinet to regurgitate some standard, committed to memory, SOP lines to please their masters.
It is groupthink stuffs as strongly held by them as a used toothpick. I am fairly confident that as soon as the master leaves the scene, such robotic statements would also be discarded and expunged from their memory.
law? incapable system leaded by incapable person in the court, great singapore